Denise Linn, Fire & Regeneration
Greetings and Welcome to my Mumblings and Musings!!!
I hope that your life is bubbling with joy and meaningful connections with others!
If you’ve been following my musings over the years, I’m grateful for your presence in my life. If this is the first time you’re joining me: Welcome Aboard! I’m glad to share this time with you. I hope that you enjoy my newsletters. My “Mumblings and Musings” are just that . . . my periodic mumblings and musings about life on Summerhill Ranch here in the Central Coast of California and about life in general. It’s also how I let you know about my upcoming courses and my newly released books. I also like to use this as a forum to recommend fabulous products that I encounter in my travels that I think you might enjoy.
FIRE!
The smoke has finally cleared but over the last couple of months, it has felt like California was on fire. Even though we were about half-an-hour drive from one of the big fires—and in no real danger—on a couple of nights the house filled with so much smoke that we were sure that the fire was surging toward our home. One night, I slept with a wet washcloth over my nose and hung wet towels over the birdcages so we wouldn’t be inhaling so much smoke.
The fire-fighting planes are stationed at a small airport not far from us, so every day we watched these valiant planes fly over the ranch on the way to the fires. As they fly over, they must look down at me and think, There’s that crazy lady again, because I hold my arms to the skies and send them blessings and prayers. I hold those pilots in holy reverence; to me they are heroes.
Read MoreGreen Restaurant is Delicious
From Alumni and recent Graduate Susan Nunn:
My focus will be on restaurant consulting and feng shui for the restaurants (mostly) (we are turning this restaurant totally ‘green’ this fall)…. and all of the foods (right now we are known for having the healthiest foods around) but now we are going no partially hydrogenated oils, nothing bad at all, and I am leaving next week for a week’s cooking class in santa fe with the conscious gourmet and that focus is on no sugar and no dairy, and making our own hotcake flours, etc….
And not only organic but sustainable agricultural practices as well. I am so excited. Also have joined the Green Restaurant Assoc and they have assigned an environmental consultant to guide is up to newer levels…. This can help my personal business as well. Wow. Blessings, and I hope this finds you all well and happy.
Susan www.thundermountainlifestyles.com
Karen Carrasco at the Gathering Together
Karen Carrasco: Green Design & the Five Elements – A Match Made in Heaven
Karen Carrasco is a Western School of Feng Shui™ graduate, practitioner, and teacher. She brings to Feng Shui a lifetime of experience creating ecological homes, native plant gardens, organic farms and sustainable community among different cultures and lifestyles. Her passion is linking hearth and heart to Nature. Karen will share a model lecture that you can use to inspire your own communities with the green side of Feng Shui. If you survived the ecology-minded 70’s, or just read about them, ‘Back to Nature’ may still conjure images of unbleached, unscented dinginess, “stone-ground” tastelessness, stoic recycling duty and obligatory self-sacrifice. Certainly, even without the stereotypes, ‘going green’ could be seen as ‘going without’ many of the pleasures and conveniences of the modern world. In actuality, developing a more organic and sustainable lifestyle is moving to a deeper level of harmony. It is a refining and distilling process that produces greater clarity, profound serenity and sublime sensuality. It aligns us with our True Selves, as well as the loving embrace of Nature’s sustaining support and the generosity of Cosmic synchronicities.
Fire Updates from Nor Cal
From our friend Karen Carrasco in the Arcata, Ca area:
We have huge wildfires up here as well—the biggest (among three huge ones)–the Ukonom complex, is mostly on National Park land and the 3 adjoining Indian reservations. The latest news, published in our newspapers up here and discussed on our local radio stations, are that the Native American elders of the region are working WITH THE FIREFIGHTERS (!!) to manage the fires according to THE ANCIENT BURN PATTERNS THAT THEY ALWAYS USED TO DO.
Read MorePlastics in Ocean, on Beaches
From the Surfrider Foundation:
Did you know that an estimated 100 million tons of plastic debris have accumulated in two areas of the Pacific Ocean that together are larger than the continental United States? (These areas are aptly called the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches.) There is so much plastic, that it outnumbers the zooplankton six to one.
Plastic, like diamonds, are forever.
It doesn’t biodegrade and no naturally occurring organisms can break it down. Plastic photo-degrades, which means that sunlight breaks it down into smaller and smaller pieces. Those small pieces drift in the ocean and are mistaken for food by fish and birds.
Seabirds are often found dead with innards full of plastic. Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for food and are often found dead with their intestines clogged by plastic bags. Sadly, 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die each year due to ingestion of or entanglement in plastics.
The scope of the problem is astounding, but the Surfrider Foundation is working, through our Rise Above Plastics Campaign, to discourage the use of single-use plastics and encourage everyone to reduce, reuse and recycle.
On a more personal level, I have committed to using cloth shopping bags and reusable drink containers. I’m asking you to do the same and make a pledge to Rise Above Plastics.
Use reusable bottles for water and other drinks.
Use cloth bags for groceries and other purchases.
Recycle the plastic bags and bottles you already have.
I know that you, as a Surfrider Foundation member, are especially concerned about the effects of plastic on our oceans, waves and beaches. You and I both know that the best solution to the plastics problem is to reduce, reuse and recycle – a simple solution that is easy to commit to!
If you think that your pledge won’t make much of a difference, think again. For each reusable bag you use, another 400 plastic bags will be kept from being used. Every reusable water bottle will keep another 167 plastic bottles from entering the environment.
Thank you for making a difference for our world’s oceans, waves and beaches.
Sincerely,
Jim Moriarty
CEO
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